When my husband and I bought our house 2.5 years ago, I was thrilled to find milkweed in the yard. As the quintessential monarch butterfly food source, I had visions of tiny glistening butterfly eggs, colorful caterpillars munching, and even a delicate chrysalis adorning the plant. This is my second full summer with the milkweed and I have yet to find any evidence that any monarchs have fluttered into the tiny urban oasis awaiting them.
I was doing my usual scouting of the plants and getting fairly impatient at the lack of monarch activity, when I realized that the milkweed plants are more than just a food source for this one butterfly. There are a number of different species of milkweed plants, some with different flower colors or environmental preferences, but in general they have beautiful, highly aromatic flowers collected into an “umbel” (other common umbel-producing plants include onion, parsley, and carrot). Not just monarchs love these plants; on any given day I can find dozens of different insects congregating and feeding on the milkweed blossoms. The pods are visually striking, and the seeds have one of the most whimsical means of movement in the plant world. Additionally, there are few diseases and pests known to attack milkweed plants which made them a perfect plant for someone who doesn’t want to spend a lot of time managing them.
Regardless of if monarchs patronize your milkweed, the plants provide a number of benefits. By attracting more pollinators (including bees, wasps, and other butterflies) to the area, vegetables and other plants that must be pollinated to produce fruit benefit. You’re also acquiring a colorful world full of tiny denizens, all scurrying, flying, springing, and flitting about their business. The hum of bumble bees and the almost sickly-sweet smell of the milkweed flowers has become one of my new summer touchstones, an indication that the height of summer is here.